WANG Hongliang
2025(3): 130-145.
Article 157 of China's Civil Code regulates not only the restitution rule, but also the indemnification rule, compensation rule, comparative negligence rule, etc, when a legal transaction is invalid or revoked.Article 24 and 25 of Judicial Interpretation of General Rules of Contracts of China's Civil Code make a more elaborate explanation of article 157 of China's Civil Code.Firstly, the restitution rules should be separated outrightly from compensation rules, and rules concerning restitution of contract can be stipulated into one rule since its independent existence has justifications.Secondly, restitution of property acquired by the invalid or revoked legal act can be differentiated into three claims, including restitution of the enrichment, restitution of subrogation properties and restitution of uses.The object of restitution is the specific object received by the debtor of enrichment through payment or other means; in the restitution of subrogation properties, in principle, the value of subrogation properties is not taken into account; the consideration obtained by the debtor of enrichment by selling the object of enrichment is not subrogation property, and is not required to be returned.In principle, the debtor of enrichment has the obligation to return only the uses actually received.Lastly, in case of impossibility or unnecessity of restitution, debtor should make indemnification.The criterion for the valuation of indemnification is mainly the objective value of uses received by debtor of enrichment.When the restitution's impossibility is due to the nature of performance, the time of enrichment and the arising of the earliest claim of indemnification is the time for the valuing of indemnification.As to a subsequent impossibility restitution, the time of valuation is the time of impossibility or the arising of indemnification due to the impossibility.Other reasonable valuating methods are also allowed according to the second half sentence of paragraph 1 of article 24 of Judicial Interpretation of General Rules of Contracts of China's Civil Code.